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The GOP’s Obesity Hypocrisy

Eric Boehlert has a good piece pointing to the hypocrisy of Republicans who have characterized First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign as a big-government effort to control what Americans eat and how to eat. As he notes, while they regularly trash Obama, conservatives and their allies in the media sat on their hands as Tommy Thompson — George W. Bush’s Secretary of Health and Human Services — “urged every American to lose ten pounds as a patriotic gesture, and suggested Congress pass tax credits for people who thinned down.” “This is pure Obama Derangement Syndrome,” Boehlert explains. “Because many of the far-right Obama-hating pundits who routinely whip themselves into a frenzy denouncing First Lady Michelle Obama for her efforts to cut down obesity among children were the same ones who didn’t say boo when key players from the Bush administration did much the same thing.” It’s worth noting that GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has also touted an anti-obesity agenda, calling for mandatory physical education classes as a way to combat the epidemic.